Royal couple thwart Australian republic movement

Damien Murphy

So many photo opportunities, so many dresses. At times the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's visit seemed a variation on Paul Hogan's tourist pitch: ''Throw another royal on the barbie''.

But for every Sydney Opera House, Blue Mountains, Manly beach, Taronga Zoo and Uluru, the royal couple carried out their more serious commitments to bushfire survivors, a children's hospice and Anzac Day observances with such practised elan that respect and fame melded seamlessly. Glamorous, likeable, unpretentious, the most famous couple in the world lend the very tarnished cult of celebrity a good name.

Little wonder then that so many Australians took them to their hearts over the past 10 days. In Sydney, Brisbane, the red centre, Adelaide and Canberra, they came in their thousands to catch a glimpse. The media rode the groundswell of popularity devoting saturation coverage never accorded a royal visit.

Even that eternal Australian quandary - monarchy or republic - faded to a kind of irrelevancy as Kate's dresses, her shoes, and Prince George proved the durability and charm of royalty.

So why has Australia re-embraced royalty? Maybe it's childhood dreams. Once, at least half of us wanted to be a princess. The rest harboured quiet hopes of being Prince Charming.

Dressed like a pearly queen, Linda McCartney joined the crowd waiting for the royal couple at the prosaically named Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth on Wednesday, and remembered as a little girl in Manchester looking at photographs of Princess Elizabeth.

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''We all wanted to be like her. Then I saw her here in Elizabeth in 1963 and now I'm seeing her grandson with his Kate,'' she said. ''That's their secret: They're part of all our lives, they stand for a sort of decency we all carry in our heart of hearts. They are the best of us.''

In truth, the fly-in-fly-out visit did not look like hard work. But the New Zealand leg looked slightly more interesting. They did things, played games, she appeared in an evening dress, even the unveiling of Prince George at a playgroup worked better than his encounter with a bilby. Australia was more meet dignitaries, meet locals, be photographed and drive away.

But success was guaranteed. First royal visits are always winners.

On February 3, 1954, the young Queen and Prince Philip began an eight-week tour of all states and Australia succumbed to a kind of royal delirium. It lingered long. But the older generation of royals proved themselves so unworthy that, amid the toe-sucking, a princely desire to be a tampon and other illicit affairs, many Australians drifted away.

Kerry Chikarovski caught the zeitgeist on this week's Q&A: ''My mother and father's generation had the Queen and everybody revered the Queen. The younger generation now have Will and Kate and George is breaking hearts all over Australia … My generation got Charles and Camilla, and you go, 'Honestly, do we really want someone of that ilk to be our head of state?'''

Just as Anzac Day has had something of a renaissance, so too has interest in the monarchy.

Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy national convener David Flint thinks it the most successful royal tour since the Queen's in 1954.

''People simply like them. They look at them and realise they're not doing it for some personal advantage,'' Professor Flint said. ''I don't detect any strong feelings against a republic.''

Republicans await the change of ruler. But in February, a ReachTEL poll conducted for Fairfax found republican support had collapsed to a 20-year low, with just 39.4 per cent of Australians backing the idea. Only 30.7 per cent of people over 65 wanted a republic but the biggest surprise perhaps was Gen Y - only 35.6 per cent wanted to break from the monarchy.

Thirty years ago, when the newly married Prince and Princess of Wales toured Australia with their newborn son, they, too, were a golden couple.

Clearly, youth, beauty and a new baby outweigh politics to generations raised on aspirational celebrity.